Posted on Friday, January 25th, 2013 by Angie Han
Although Quentin Tarantino‘s works aren’t overtly linked like, say, the films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe are, his devoted fans know they’re all connected in smaller, subtler ways. Perhaps the most famous association is between Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction — Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) and Vincent Vega (John Travolta) are brothers — but there’s also the offhand mention of True Romance‘s Alabama (Patricia Arquette) in Reservoir Dogs, the familial relationship between Ingourious Basterds‘ Donnie Donowitz (Eli Roth) and True Romance‘s Lee Donowitz (Saul Rubinek), and so on.
Tarantino’s latest, Django Unchained, takes place a century before all those other films, making it a little more difficult to connect it to the rest of his oeuvre. But fear not, Tarantino lovers — the master filmmaker has found a way. Hit the jump to find out what it is.
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Posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2013 by David Chen
This podcast contains spoilers for Django Unchained and Zero Dark Thirty.
Dave, Devindra, and Adam chat with film critic Armond White about Quentin Tarantino’s work in Django Unchained, as well as why Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance and Taken 2 are better films than Zero Dark Thirty. Be sure to check out Armond’s Django review, as well as his “Better Than” list for 2012.
You can always e-mail us at slashfilmcast(AT)gmail(DOT)com, or call and leave a voicemail at 781-583-1993.
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For the 70th year, the Hollywood Foreign Press handed out their Golden Globe Awards Sunday night. Hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler entertained an audience of TV and movie fans there to bestow awards to shows like Girls, Modern Family, Smash, Breaking Bad, Homeland and Downton Abbey and films like Lincoln, Argo, Django Unchained, Life of Pi, Silver Linings Playbook, Zero Dark Thirty and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. Yes, I said Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.
That’s just one example of surprise nominees that make the Globes such a wild card each and every year. Check out all the winners below along with live commentary.
UPDATE: We’ve embedded a lot of the special moments from the show below. Read More »
Posted on Thursday, January 10th, 2013 by Angie Han
Emma Stone and Seth MacFarlane woke up at the crack of dawn this morning to announce the nominees for the 85th Academy Awards. Academy members nominated nine contenders for Best Picture, with Amour, Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Miserables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, and Zero Dark Thirty all in the mix. The choices aren’t totally surprising, but it’s still a strong group of competitors.
It’s always interesting to see how the Best Picture category correlates to the Best Director one, and the notable names shut out this year include Kathryn Bigelow, Ben Affleck, Tom Hooper, and Quentin Tarantino — the first three of whom were all nominated for the DGA prize earlier this week. Another notable snub that I know /Film readers will be all over is the lack of recognition for Looper, which scored in none of the major categories.
On a happier note, The Master hasn’t been getting much love so far but it managed to score three Oscar nominations, all in the acting categories. The Best Actress group proved a historic one, with both the oldest (85-year-old Emmanuelle Riva) and youngest (9-year-old Quvenzhane Wallis) nominees in the category. And the animated field went exactly the way you’d suspect, but I’m just happy to see ParaNorman get a nod. Hit the jump to read the list of nominees.
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Quentin Tarantino‘s new film Django Unchained is a big beast, but it was once bigger. The original script, widely leaked last summer, is a 166-page monster that features characters and situations that didn’t make the final cut at all, and others that appear in significantly altered form. And then there’s stuff in the film that wasn’t in the script at all, but which was planned to be bigger or more detailed at one point.
If you want to read the script, you can grab it from the Weinstein Company’s “for your consideration” site for the film. Then you can cross reference it with a lot of the info that’s floating around now. For instance, we knew that Sacha Baron Cohen was cast in the film but had to drop out. We’ve got a brief story from him about why he couldn’t play Scotty, a character ultimately cut. And Walton Goggins talks about scenes he shot that didn’t make the final film.
Finally, there’s a secret about the mute character played by Zoe Bell, under a bandanna, which helps reveal why she didn’t have any lines in the film. Vague spoilers follow, but by this point you’ve seen Django, yes? Read More »
We’re already at the point in the award season where a few films have been solidified as the big winners and prime Oscar candidates. Zero Dark Thirty, Moonrise Kingdom, Silver Linings Playbook, and Lincoln have been awards frontrunners for weeks, and will likely continue to dominate slates of official accolades until the season ends with Oscars being handed out on February 24.
The Best Picture category in the Oscars is based around the efforts of producers, and so the Producer’s Guild of America nominations are a pretty good indicator of what we’re likely to see as a nomination slate for the Best Picture Oscar when AMPAS announces noms next week.
Today the PGA announced its nominations (one day early) and the ten films that were highlighted for what amounts to the PGA’s “best picture” award are: Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Misérables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Moonrise Kingdom, Silver Linings Playbook, Skyfall, Zero Dark Thirty.
Nothing there for The Master, but that isn’t even much of a surprise at this point, given how things have been going. The inclusion of Skyfall is a bit of a surprise, but mostly for the fact that it is the big commercial outlier rather than The Avengers. Marvel’s The Avengers was a success on many levels, but if any one position should get a sage nod in appreciation of a job well done on that movie, it’s the producers. Same goes for Skyfall, however, so even that “surprise” is a small one.
The press release featuring all of the nominations is after the break.
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Posted on Friday, December 28th, 2012 by Angie Han
The Alamo Drafthouse brand is beloved among moviegoers for their plush theaters, but it’s revered for their impeccable taste in movies. Whether programming a film festival or picking up indies for distribution, they’ve demonstrated an eye for films that aren’t just good, but unique.
With 2012 on its way out, the company has just released its list of their ten favorite movies from the year. Some of the titles were as successful at the box office as they were with critics, while others are more off the beaten track, but all are well worth checking out. Read their picks after the jump.
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It’s been three and a half years since the Cannes debut of Inglourious Basterds, and now Quentin Tarantino has returned with Django Unchained. The film might be the unlikeliest Christmas Day release ever, as it stars Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz as a freed slave and his bounty hunting benefactor who are seeking to free Django’s wife (Kerry Washington) from the man (Leonardo DiCaprio) who owns her.
The film is a screed against slavery — with Tarantino’s penchant for violence and exaggerated depictions of history, this vision of America’s most awful historical institution can’t be seen as anything but horror. But as this is a Quentin Tarantino movie, it is a movie first and foremost, with vivid, energetic violence punctuating long verbal encounters between the characters as the director riffs on westerns and revenge movies in his own unique style.
Django Unchained is hitting top ten lists and creating some heated conversation thanks to the nature of the story, but now we want to hear what you thought of the film. Speak up in the comments below, where spoilers are encouraged. Read More »
Posted on Monday, December 24th, 2012 by David Chen
Dave, Devindra, and Adam tackle Quentin Tarantino’s latest historical epic, Django Unchained.
You can always e-mail us at slashfilmcast(AT)gmail(DOT)com, or call and leave a voicemail at 781-583-1993.
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